Monday, August 23, 2010

Back to School

I went back to work today. I wasn't really supposed to, according to the calendar with the number of days the union contract says that I work.

However, we're in a new room, in a different school, in a different district, and there's a whole room to get ready. Also, we service grades K-8, so all that information has to be available as well, even though we're starting the year with only four kids. Two of those should be transitioning out of our room pretty soon, but then we should also have some transition in.

So all week it's unloading, moving, sorting, and setting up in the classroom. There's also all the meetings to get to know who we're working with, as well as the families, and then all the paperwork meetings. We are working with the Mental Health dept., and the classroom will run with their staff working in conjunction with us.

There are five to six adults who are supposed to be working with these kids - but that stays constant whether we have 2 kids or 12. The teacher, other assistant & I are responsible for the education component, while the mental health people are supposed to work on teaching the skills necessary to help the students move back to regular school. Theoretically, this takes about six weeks...

Hopefully everyone will work together to achieve this goal - that's the plan, anyway...

As to my extra work days that are not contracted, I'll probably have to take comp time later. Most likely when we're low on kids so I don't need a sub. Fun & Games.